The year was 2001.
I was in college and living in the Haskell Street residence hall.
I remember it was 2001 because someone down the hall from me had an advance, bootlegged copy of Jay Z’s ‘The Blueprint’ album and blasted it from their stereo over, and over, and over … every single day.
One day, I returned to my room after a light day of classes to take a nap before going to the cafeteria.
My roommate was a football player and was hardly ever in the room, so I had the place to myself for most of the semester.
I took off my backpack and shoes, flopped on the bed, and stared at my favorite cinder block in the wall until I fell asleep.
Ten minutes or so later, I was awakened by a knock at the door. I ignored it, assuming it was one of my roommate’s football friends stopping by to “borrow” some of his protein powder.
I eventually rolled over, slid my feet into my shower shoes, and slouched across the room.
I opened the door and a short, hazy-eyed fellow was standing in the hallway, looking like a background character from the Cooley High movie.
He seemed familiar, like I had seen on campus or in the building, but I didn’t know him—which wasn’t a complete oddity since people would visit rooms in search of cups, plastic utensils, Ramen noodles, etc.
I greeted him with a tired gaze. “What’s up.”
“You Dante?” he said.
“Yeah, I’m Dante … what’s up?”
“Aye dawg, I need some piss!”
I was sleepy, agitated, and curious as to what I, being Dante, had to do with this guy needing piss at 2:00 in the afternoon.
“You need piss?”
“Yeah, dawg,” he said, looking at me with stretched eyes. “My man is a supervision on first shift at my job. He said they gon’ pop second shift with a piss test. I’m dirty as hell, and I heard you don’t smoke.”
I understood the dude’s plight and why he sought me out. Finding someone at my school who didn’t “smoke” was like finding a golden calf; finding someone in my residence hall who didn’t smoke was like finding a ‘blood’ diamond; and finding someone who didn’t smoke and was cool enough to solicit for a urine sample was equivalent to the ninth wonder of the world.
But I was more concerned with revisiting my nap. “Man, I’m in here sleeping.”
“I wouldn’t even ask, dawg, but I gotta be at work at three.” His purple lips trembled with fear.
I rubbed my face, trying to wake myself up, and must have wiped away some of my discontent. “All right, man … you got a cup or something?”
“Nah, dawg.” The dude reached into his pocket, pulled out a condom, and held it out to me. “I need you to piss in this rubber.”
“Piss in a rubber?”
“Yeah, dawg.”
The dude wanted me to go into the bathroom, urinate into the condom and tie it in a knot. He would then pin the tied condom to the inside of his jeans and when it was time to fill the specimen cup, he would poke a hole in the condom with another pin and squeeze the contents into the cup.
I thought the idea was asinine (yet genius in some way), but wondered how he planned to carry out the plan without getting some of my urine on his hand—and what the lab would think of him having so much Nonoxynol-9 (a spermicide used on condoms) in his system.
I looked at the condom as he held it out to me. “Nah man, I’m not doing that.”
“Come on, dawg. I gotta be there at three,” he pleaded.
“Nah,” I said. “You gotta find someone else to do it.”
I wished him well as I closed the door in his face. He mumbled something as he walked away, but I didn’t care.
I might have helped him if I had known him better or if he had shown up with a cup, but I wasn’t urinating into a condom and giving it to a stranger who came knocking at my door while I was taking a nap.
Far be it from me to judge someone’s “extracurricular” activities, especially if those activities don’t infringe upon anyone else. But if you have to handle a stranger’s piss to cover up your activities then, maybe, you should reconsider.
And the dude had audacity for asking for something like that, anyway—I was even stingy with my Ramen noodles back then.
Lesson Learned: Some piss on the hand isn’t worth two blunts in the bush.
